Silence
by Galaxia Alpha
Summary: A NarutoHinata moment: He has learned to deal with silence...


**Disclaimer:** Obviously, I don't own Naruto. Do I really need to even say it?

**Rating:** PG-13

**Continuity:** After Naruto comes back from his almost-three-years of training. Imagine he's about 16 or so in this story.

**Summary:** A moment between Naruto and Hinata.

**A/N:** I can't believe I wrote a Naruto fic. I'm currently working on three separate stories in three separate fandoms. Isn't that enough?

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

**Silence**

He has learned to deal with silence. He has faced it his entire life, since as young as he can remember. Then it was the silence of an empty home without a family. The sudden hush of the adults when they passed him on the street. The other kids ignoring him when he asked to play. The deadpan looks he got whenever he spoke up in school. It was the silence of being invisible. But he has learned to cope with all that, to compensate. He has learned to fill the silence.

Scuffing his sandals against the grass loudly, and raising his legs in front of him higher than he needs to, he walks through the trees toward the training ground. His fingers play with the folds of the fabric inside his pockets and the wind twists his hair in front of his eyes.

"N-Naruto-kun."

His blue eyes snap up to find her, half hidden behind a large bolder, fingers lifted to her lips.

"Hinata-chan. What are you doing here?" He asks, speaking loudly and giving her a large grin because that's what he's supposed to do.

She smiles back shyly and it's such an honest expression that he feels somehow embarrassed. Her pale eyes quickly dart down and one of her hands lifts stray indigo-black hair away from her cheek. Her hair has gotten so long now, long enough to get caught up in the breeze, long enough to look like waves of tinted ebony in the early morning light. "I-I'm glad you're okay."

"Oh," he says without really meaning to. Looking away suddenly, his gaze shifts to the leaves in the trees. So she's heard. She always manages to hear somehow, whenever anything happens to him, and she always manages to find him afterward to tell him that she's glad he's okay. He blinks and there is a sudden flashback of red charka pouring out of him in an uncontrolled tsunami. When he blinks again, there is just him, her, and the trees. He takes a breath. "Hey, hey," he shouts enthusiastically, "Of course I'm okay. I've got to become Hokage one day, right? So nothing's going to stop me. What're you doing hiding behind that bolder, Hinata-chan? I'm not going to bite, ya know."

With a delicate, graceful step, she moves into full view. "Sorry."

"Don't worry. It's okay. But I don't know why you hide like that all the time. You're not a bad looking girl or anything." She's so real that it's hard to look at her. Even her generous curves make her something tangible, more substantial than girls like Ino, or even Sakura. But, more than all that, it's the uncovered sincerity in her eyes that gets him. He always feels so damn naked in front of her. So he smiles even wider and squints his eyes closed.

"T-thank you, Naruto-kun."

He opens his eyes again and she looks like she wants to get back behind the bolder, rosy blush staining her cheeks. He hates that she's scared of him. Most people are, even those he holds close. Sakura-chan is afraid of how much he's changed. Tsunade is afraid of what he'll become. Kakashi-sensei is afraid of his power—of the demon fox's power. Another flash of an image from the day before, and he sees Kakashi flying backwards through the air. He reaches toward him desperately, but the motion only serves to drive his Sensei deep into the ground.

"Are you sure you're okay, Naruto-kun?"

"Sure, Hinata-chan. I'm just on my way to go train. I need to work real hard so that I can get strong, you know? I've learned so many new Jitsus and I'm really getting good! Soon I'll be better than everyone, even Granny Tsunade. What will she do then, I wonder?" He looks up and comically scratches his head in thought. He's waiting for her to give him a frustrated sigh, or to call him an idiot, or to tell him he's crazy or even that he's great, just like he's bragging he is.

But she does none of that. She only gives him silence.

He looks up and she's got that shy, concerned look in her pale silver eyes, and even though he hates that she's afraid of him, he loves that she fears him for different reasons than everybody else does. Finally, she says, "I believe that you'll do it, Naruto-kun." And there is an expression of love in her childlike features.

He knows, because he has been watching expressions of love his whole life. He used to sit in the shadows after school as the parents came to pick up their children, and he would study those expressions of love until he was an expert, so that, just in case anyone ever gave one to him, he would recognize it. Because of that, he knows that Ino is starting to fall in love with Chouji. He knows that Kakashi has loved once and has lost that love, and is afraid to ever love again. He knows that Sakura still loves Sasuke and that she always will.

But just because he can recognize an expression of love, it doesn't mean he has any idea of what to do with it. So he scratches the back of his head bashfully and chuckles forcefully. "Thanks! I won't let you down! I'm going to do my best."

And there is more silence. They stand there in the moments between words and he is still feeling exposed, even though her eyes are focused on the ground. With one last, cheeky, closed-eyed grin, he turns to go, and is about to throw a "goodbye" over his shoulder when he pauses suddenly, his back to her. His body won't move, words that want to spill out of him holding him back. Words that he would never tell anyone else. And it's like it always is during these brief meetings, because he _needs_ to tell her even though he doesn't understand why.

"I..." He stops. Now he is the one stuttering. "Yesterday, I lost control of the Nine Tails. It was only for a few seconds during training and nobody was seriously hurt, but…" He pauses, and notices that even the wind has stopped rustling through the leaves. More silence that he needs to fill. "But… but what if it happens again? I mean, it's not the first time, and what if next time I can't get the demon fox under control again?"

It takes her a moment to respond, and he waits, body shaking, in that silence. Then: "You will, because you'll fight it. Just like you always do. Just like you always have." And her stutter is suddenly gone.

With the eyes of a helpless child, he gazes at her. Her stance is firm, hands held in front of her body and her expression determined. She looks beautiful like this. Pure. Untouched. Too perfect.

Damn it.

He gives her the most real smile he can manage and says, "Thanks, Hinata-chan. Maybe I'll see you later, okay?"

She nods once, making a little noise of affirmation. Her eyes are watching him intently, focused in a way that she would have never had the courage for when they were children, filled with intense compassion. But she never speaks. She rarely needs to. She's always so damn quiet and it's so damn overwhelming.

This time he really does walk away, and it's hard not to run.

He has learned to deal with silence. But _her_ silence is the only one he doesn't know how to handle.

_End_


End file.
